[ox-en] Mutual support, etc. and Free Software (was: Re: Next successful Free Product?)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:49:43 +0200
Hi Franz!
Thanks for pointing out all this so clearly. I'm more and more
convinced that you are pursuing a model of society which is mostly
contrary to the facts we can see in Free Software and thus not
directly useful for a society based on the prinicples of Free
Software. I'd like to make this clear below. This may sound somewhat
hard but I think we need this clarification now. If Oekonux is trying
to generate some useful societal theory we *must* obey the facts.
Otherwise it's just another ideology which is meant well but done
wrong.
3 weeks (21 days) ago Franz Nahrada wrote:
in list-en oekonux.org, Stefan Merten
wrote on Tue, 04. Oktober 2005 um 18:39 +0100:
On the other hand in the area of Free Software there is lot of
(implicit) mutual support.
^^^^^^^^^^
May be I should have not put the implicit in parentheses. Indeed the
"implicit" is extremely important here because it is *not* mutual
support what we see in Free Software. May be I should even have
dropped the "mutual".
The support we see in Free Software is much more organized like the
support we see on a market: I check whether a certain product I need
now is present or not. If you work with Free Software you do this all
the time. I'm neither asking someone to support me in my particular
need nor do I ask someone what could support him/her when starting a
new project. So there is not even a practical basis for support not
talking of mutual support.
Even when a Free Software project adds features for the users of the
projects this support is in no way mutual because the users desiring
features usually do not support the project. This is the rule only in
Single Free Software which IMHO is in some way not the real thing
(TM).
Indeed I think there are also practical reasons why mutual support in
Free Software can not work well.
Indeed I think this is one of the most important lessons to learn from
Free Software: It is a huge system of independent projects which is
*not* based on mutual support. Instead it reminds me more of a market
but without the exchange value part. This way Free Software as a
phenomenon overcomes mutual support *and* the capitalist market. In
effect it shows a practical example of how societal coherence and
overall results can look like when both of these principles are
overcome and resolved in a synthesis on a new level.
I'd agree, however, that we do not fully understand how this works yet
- IMHO this is part of the OHA debate. But I think it is ignoring
facts to assume mutual support plays a central role in Free Software.
May be this is can be used as a criteria:
That in a given area of human activity is mutual support of Free
Projects better for the projects and all of society than competition
capitalist style.
I think there might be large agreement. We are talking about a veritable
"gift economy" here, although the gifts might be based simply on
agreements.
Again this is contrary to the facts. Free Software is *not* a gift in
any useful sense of the word. There is nobody who gives a gift and
nobody who receives a gift. I just take what is available and others
give what they like. In no instance there are particular persons
involved.
Also the Free Software scene is mostly *not* based on agreements.
Zillions of Free Software projects do not and will not agree - and
this is good. Again we have much more market like phenomenons when you
simply choose the best product available either to use it or to
contribute to it but without the competition layer introduced by
exchange value.
Again I think to assume gifts and agreements in Free Software is
contrary to the facts if we think in terms of basic structuring
features.
Also if mutual support is taken seriously to start it you need to
support Free Software creators first. Since they need not much
specific support for their work beyond that they give themselves to
each other it would mean to give them good live conditions. Hard to
imagine beyond the money scheme.
As I said: its hard to imagine, but maybe easy to conceive. When Free
Software developers are working on mundane things like CNC Designs that
can be performed by semi-automated cutters, plotters, fabbers there is a
natural incentive to support their work by providing housing, food and
other support.
This is also against the facts. If there would be a "natural"
incentive then users of Free Software would be keen to pay the Double
Free Software developers. This, however, as far as I can see is only a
marginal trend. Yes, it exists and is promoted by SourceForge and the
like but so far I can't see this is really important and recently
Karel told us that it doesn't work decently. Also nobody asked me for
my bank account to transfer some money for the Free Software I wrote
and s/he uses ;-) .
No there is no moral obligation to pay Double Free Software authors
and this is exactly like people feel obviously. Also this is more
similar to market and capitalist way of production than to anything
else.
And this would not change if other products are available Freely. Why
should it? In the contrary in a society based on the principles of
Free Software everyone is free to take the products others produced
because they were keen producing. Why should someone even *feel* the
necessity to reward someone?
In earlier ages, society had no problems to support totally "unproductive"
classes like monks and priests because their work was considered valuable
for society. Imagine a lot of small enterprises working with Open Source
software and hardware in a region and the way they could consider the work
of developers a direct support of their economic life.
You are thinking in terms of scarcity or may be limitations. What you
describe was a necessity in societies which needed specialists for
certain tasks. A society based on the principles of Free Software
would be rather a society of specialists all contributing to the
common wealth. Extra support for special people is simply superfluous.
We are getting political and polit-economical here, and although - as you
mentioned in the other posting - I support the general findings of Krisis
about the running short of accumulation in the world system (and I think
Asia is not a bad example of how the final cycles happen much faster and
more brusque) I think there is lots of regional degrees of freedom to
refuge into mutual support systems.
Free Software is not local in any way but may be the most globalized
product we know of. In a society based on the principles of Free
Software there is also no special need for regional support. As Free
Software all products necessary are available where they are needed.
In the contrary I'd say that the niches capitalism leaves because
labor can no longer be valorized there are those areas which are
especially hard to fill with Free Projects based on Selbstentfaltung.
I think Frithjof Bergmann is right: what you call "Selbstentfaltung" and
what he calls the "Calling" or the "things we really, really want"
This is probably what we agree on. However, Selbstentfaltung /
self-unfolding / Calling / etc. has little to do with mutual support
etc.
has to
pair with "Self-Providing". If we can build a "sandwich" of these two
entirely different layers of our expanded work universe, we gain real
freedom.
Again self-providing is contrary to the facts in Free Software.
Self-providing in Free Software would mean that everyone writes
his/her own editor, compiler, window system and so on. In the contrary
Free Software projects are in some sense centralized because there is
a project which maintains the product and cares about its development.
The result of this product is then mass-reproduced by digital copy to
everyone who needs it. So in a sense we have mass production in Free
Software. Also in this respect Free Software is very much like the
capitalist mode of production.
I stop here because I think these things are really crucial and we
need to clarify them.
So far I can see we agree that Selbstentfaltung is necessary. Fine.
But I say that mutual support, gifts, agreement on the level of
society, moral obligation, self-providing, local production are *no*
features of Free Software. Indeed when I remember my anarchist times
these features are a perfect anarchist program. In fact it is a
perfect vision of the anarchist's paradise. So after all these years I
finally learned that the anarchist's paradise is contrary to the
practice of Free Software :-) .
Instead Free Software in all these areas is much more similar to the
capitalist mode of production than to the anarchist's paradise.
However, it overcomes the exchange principle and thus overcomes a lot
of the negative sides of exchange and this is probably the point why
we find it an interesting model.
Thanks again for pointing this out so clearly so finally it is on the
table now and we can try to find a new start here or agree to
disagree. For me if the principles of Free Software are put in the
center of a new paradigm for society then we need to explore how Free
Software overcomes the anarchist's paradise *and* exchange based
forms. We *must* take the facts of Free Software into account.
Otherwise Oekonux would be just another ideological framework with
exactly no relevance in the real world.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
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